Home from the Hill
by Frost Deejn
Summary: Mulder and Scully find themselves on opposite sides of the fight for the future, but are they really willing to give up on each other? Character death.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: 1013 Productions, not I, owns _The X-Files;_ no infringement intended.

**Prologue**

Part of me hoped I wouldn't find what I was searching for.

I held my gun pointed towards the floor as I ran through the empty halls of the abandoned building. I glanced though each open door.

She was here, and she couldn't escape. Shame.

I didn't want to think about what I had to do. Of course, she knew I would do it. She'd told me as much herself, before I understood...before I knew the truth.

Flashback

"I don't believe you can kill me, Scully."

She held the gun on him. It shook slightly. Her pale face contorted with warring emotions.

"Maybe I can't. _They_ don't believe I can. I told them I was strong enough."

His voice was gentle. Was this really the Scully _he_ knew? "I don't understand, Scully. Who's making you do this?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you, Mulder. If you knew...You just can't know."

"I know you don't want to do this, Scully."

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked resigned. "You know who's going to win this, Mulder?" She asked. "The side with the most secrets."

He knew this had to do with her recent disappearance. He'd been so happy when he found her again, alive. What could have driven her to this? "What secrets, Scully?"

She smiled, but her smile was cold. "The truth, Mulder." She started retreating toward the door. "You're right. I can't kill you. But when you learn the truth," her voice dropped, "you won't hesitate to kill me."

Present

She wasn't entirely right: I _was_ hesitating. I had no wish to put a bullet in the woman who had been my partner, confidante, and closest friend for a decade. But I had no choice, for with the truth came the responsibility to take sides, and Scully had taken the wrong one.

No, that wasn't fair. We'd both taken the sides we were destined to take: they just happened to not be the same one.

I heard her. She was in the room above me. There were only the two of us in the whole building, and she had nowhere to hide.

Still, as I walked silently up the stairs I considered just saying Scully had slipped through my fingers. She knew me better than anyone, after all. Knew how I think, how I react.

But _she_ knew me well, too. She'd been watching me for years, and if Scully escaped, she would know it was because I _let_ her.

I pushed open an old door, and there was Scully, as though she'd been waiting for me.

"Here we are," she said simply.

"You can still save yourself," I told her. "If you'd just tell us what you know about the BOC..."

"That's not going to happen, Mulder."

"They're terrorists, Scully."

"And you're working for the conspirators," she replied. "You're on the same side as Cancer Man, Krycek, and the Grays."

"They're working for the salvation of the human species!" I said more forcefully than I intended.

She rolled her eyes in a gesture that reminded me too much of the years we'd worked together, before we knew the places fate had set for us. I never would have believed it at the time, but ignorance really had been bliss.

"Tell yourself what you need to, Mulder. But you have to realize that if your sister wasn't the aliens' telepathic link to the conspirators, you never would have changed sides. Doesn't it bother you that Samantha was behind everything that happened to us? Behind the murders of your parents, my sister, me, and you?"

"And I suppose the BOC has a better idea of how to save the planet?" I asked defensively.

"The side with the most secrets, Mulder."

My finger was on the trigger of my gun, but I didn't pull it yet. She did have a point. My sister and her underlings had tried to kill Scully so many times...she was never supposed to be returned after her abduction, I'd learned. And the microchip I thought had cured her cancer had only been a monitoring device. Each time, she'd somehow miraculously survived. Samantha and the others believed the mysterious terrorist organization known as the BOC had been behind at least some of those unfortunate miracles. And while it was true that they'd occasionally tried to kill me, each of those instances had been a last resort, and never expressly sanctioned by Samantha.

But Scully was dangerous to them, and therefore dangerous to the human race.

And I couldn't fail Samantha.

My finger squeezed.

Scully slid to the floor. Bright red blood flowed down her shirt. She looked up at me. "I knew you'd do it."

I stared at her, horrified by what I'd done. This was _Scully_, I owed her my life dozens of times over, and my soul besides. In a way, I loved her. And I just killed her.

I wanted so much to go to her, to hold her, to save her. But I couldn't look at the blood spreading from her body...not when I had caused it. She was dying, and I had killed her. I couldn't watch her die. I turned and ran from the room, and kept on running until I couldn't think anymore.

Later that night, I sat in my apartment. My gun--the gun that had killed Scully--cradled in my hands. How could I live with myself, after what I'd done? I lifted the gun to my head, and waited.

Then my phone rang.

Without taking the gun's barrel from my head, I answered it. "Mulder."

"Hey, Fox." It was my sister's voice. "I have some bad news."

I would have been even less happy if she'd had some good news. "What?"

"The clean-up team I sent to cover up Dana Scully's murder found something disturbing. Or, rather, _didn't_ find something..."

I straightened up and let my gun sink away from my head. "What!"

"The body's gone. Lots of blood, but no body. There was no way someone could have gotten in to that building; we think she got out of there on her own. The window was broken and we found your bullet on the beach below."

"That's impossible," I said. "I shot her in the chest! She couldn't have walked away from that!"

"We don't understand it either. But it's not like this is the first time she's pulled something like this."

That was true. Ever since her disappearance, defying death seemed to be Scully's specialty. I had _seen_ her body. I saw them bury her in the ground. I even got in a fight with her brother before the funeral. After I found her again, no one wanted to ask questions about that. But I knew what I saw.

And then there had been the helicopter crash on that case investigating the secret government base in the Pahvant Mountains, but she'd only survived that because she had the Equation, and she had me destroy it.

Unless she had another copy. She said there had only been one copy, but she could have lied. It was the only shred of hope I had.

"Keep me updated on the search," I said in a cracking voice, as I put my gun away.

"Okay. Love ya, Bro."

"Love you too, Sis."

Samantha Mulder hung up the phone. Though she was unhappy that Scully seemed to have escaped, she was quite pleased with her brother's performance. She knew he hadn't wanted to shoot Agent Scully, but she also knew that he would do it for her, just as she knew that he would do it again if he had to.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ belongs to Chris Carter, not to me. Thank you for not suing. The title of this story comes from the poem "Requiem" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

**Home from the Hill**

**Chapter 1**

Samantha Mulder sat at the head of a table in a dimly lit room. She didn't look happy, and neither did the dozen other people sitting around the table.

"Mr. Vanderveen, do we have any new developments in our investigation of the BOC?"

"No," the young blond man answered apologetically. "There's been no activity from them since the theft of the alien fetus. It's as if they disappeared."

Samantha scowled and looked at a chubby elderly man. "Mr. Holme, how is our search for Dana Scully coming?"

The elderly man spoke in a soft, slow voice. "I'm afraid there's been no sign of her, either."

"Fox, please tell me you have a lead on Gibson Praise."

Fox Mulder averted his eyes. "No. My guess is that the BOC has him in hiding. There's no indication that he's been in contact with his family in New Zealand since his disappearance."

"We have our annual meeting with the Grays in two months," Samantha reminded them. "Everyone in this room is going to be at that meeting, and I want each of you to have some good news for our friends. Understood?"

Nervous glances were exchanged. "Understood," Mr. Vanderveen answered for the group.

"Dismissed," Samantha said in a slightly threatening tone.

* * *

Agent Hector Hallad sat at his desk in the dusty basement office that housed the X-files. The desktop was cluttered with open files, a notebook, several newspapers, a tabloid, and his laptop computer.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," the short FBI agent with the bright orange hair, boyish face, and goofy grin called out.

Mulder opened the door to his old office, fighting back waves of nostalgia and regret. Though Hallad didn't know it, Mulder had been responsible for his release from a mental institution, generous psychological reevaluation, and reinstatement to the X-files.

"How are you, Hector?"

"Same as usual," Agent Hallad answered. "Too much work, not enough sanity. You look tired."

"I haven't slept well for a long time," Mulder admitted. He tossed a computer disk on the pile of newspapers on Hallad's desk.

"What is that?" Hallad asked.

"Copy of a secret document that refers to Serenix," Mulder explained.

Hector's youthful face suddenly hardened, revealing the bitterness that he harbored for the secret international network of scientists known only as Serenix. His first partner had been on their payroll during an investigation that led the agents to a conspiracy involving human cloning and eugenics. Hallad had been forced to shoot and kill his own partner in self defense, an action that still haunted him. Mulder could now sympathize. After Scully's apparent death in a bombing of an abandoned military building, Hallad became Mulder's partner on the X-files. That lasted until he helped a conspiracy theorist and suspected terrorist escape from prison, which resulted in his institutionalization.

Though Mulder had delivered what he came to deliver, and was justifiably afraid of being discovered passing information to the enemy, he didn't want to leave yet. Hector was just about the only friend he had left. "What are you looking at?" he asked, glancing at a webpage written in Cyrillic script.

"I'm reading about a faith healer in Ukraine," Hector said. "She's supposed to have absolutely miraculous powers, but she's really secretive. She's guarded by an armed cult of followers, and she always wears a mask. No one even knows her name." He pulled up a black-and-white photo of the faith healer. The cloth mask covered her entire head. It looked like an executioner's hood. Only the eyes were visible.

Those eyes looked familiar.

It couldn't have been Scully, Mulder told himself. Though, if she did have the Isis Equation, he knew from experience that she could use it to heal other people, as well as herself. But why would she go to Ukraine?

"Where did you find this?" Mulder asked.

"I did a search for faith healers in international news one day when I was bored."

Mulder smiled wryly. That wasn't surprising, coming from Hector. "Where in Ukraine is she?"

"Sevastopol'. I've never heard of it, either."

Mulder decided he'd better go. "Keep up the good work. I'll talk to you later, if I live long enough."

"Right. Thanks for this," Agent Hallad said, picking up the computer disk.

"Remember, you didn't get it from me."

Hector rolled his eyes. "I don't know where this came from. I found it in the garbage one day. And as far as I know, you're dead."

"Truer than you know," Mulder said, thinking of Scully. He walked out of the office, mentally planning how he would arrange a trip to Ukraine without Samantha getting suspicious.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: _The X-Files _is the legal and intellectual property of Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen Productions.

Chapter 2

The dilapidated building, located in one of the dustier corners of Sevastopol', resembled some kind of clinic. Mulder couldn't read the sign next to the door, but he didn't think it applied anymore, anyway. It had taken surprisingly little asking around to find it; everyone in Sevastopol' seemed to have heard about the mysterious healer.

That summer afternoon was hot and humid. Dusty clouds rolled across the sky. It reminded him of the day—what was it, three years ago?—when he went to a small town in the Midwest where someone had reported a UFO landing. He hadn't found a UFO, but he had found the woman he'd come to know as Emiline Bach, a suspected member of the terrorist organization called the BOC. She started him on the treasure hunt that eventually led to a Saskatchewan hospital. He remembered vividly looking through the hospital room window to see Scully sitting on the bed. She had never looked more beautiful than she had that moment. Mulder never admitted it, even to himself, but he had hoped to find her alive. At first, she suffered from complete amnesia that the doctors couldn't explain. She quickly recovered her memory, but never could recall anything between when Mulder left her in the military warehouse minutes before the explosion that everyone thought had killed her, and waking up in that hospital. That was a significant eleven month gap.

Mulder was lost in memory when he opened the unlocked door and walked down the lightless hallway. He heard voices down the hall, and saw lights spilling out from underneath a closed door. Though he couldn't understand the language they were speaking, he stopped and listened. Would he find her again? Did he dare to harbor that hope?

The first time Mulder met Emiline Bach had been shortly after Scully's funeral. He was sitting in a bar when a tall, mysterious woman sat next to him and asked if he wanted to talk. He said he wanted to be alone, but she didn't leave. She knew his name, she knew about Scully, and she refused to tell him how she knew. She handed him an envelope. He asked her what was in it, and she answered with one word: Hope. Then she left. Inside the envelope, Mulder found Scully's crucifix. Scully had been wearing it before she died, but it hadn't been on her charred corpse, nor did it show up in the building's rubble. Of course, the only proof he had that it was legitimately Scully's crucifix were the strand of familiar red hair caught in the clasp and his own gut instinct. But he had worn that necklace for the next eleven months, and never let go of the spark of hope it represented.

The door opened, snapping Mulder back to the present. He could guess the meaning of the shouts he heard. Various hands pulled him into the room. Various weapons were pointed at him. A middle-aged, red-faced man shouted a question.

"I speak English," he said. "Do any of you speak English?"

A female voice from behind the crowd said something in Ukrainian, and everyone fell silent. The mass of people directly in front of Mulder parted, allowing through a short woman wearing what looked like an executioner's hood. She examined Mulder through the mask's eyeholes. Mulder examined her in turn, noting her height, the shape of her body, the way her head tilted ever so slightly, and most of all her eyes. She shouted an order to her followers. They looked at her curiously, as though they weren't sure they'd heard her correctly. She repeated the order sharply, and the Ukrainians lowered their guns and walked out of the room. The last one closed the door behind her.

Mulder took a few tentative steps closer to the healer, stopping right in front of her. She just looked at him. He slowly reached out and pulled off her mask.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: The _X-Files_ belongs to Chris Carter, and I hope he forgives me for borrowing it and twisting it to suit my own purposes.

Chapter 3

Mulder and Scully stared at each other. Neither allowed expressions of either pleasure or displeasure to show on their faces. Finally Mulder spoke. "Isn't that mask uncomfortable in this heat?"

Scully didn't smile; she wasn't in the mood for Mulder's levity. "How did you find me, Mulder?"

"Agent Hallad told me about a faith healer in Ukraine. I thought it might be you. One of my remarkable intuitions, you might say." He flashed a lopsided smile. "Thanks for not having me shot on sight."

"The thought did cross my mind," she informed him.

It almost frightened Mulder how much she had changed after recovering her memories of the lost eleven months. The Scully he used to know wouldn't have even considered killing him an option…or at least she wouldn't be so blunt about it. "What are you doing here, Scully?"

"I could ask you the same question." Her blue eyes were hard, her face betrayed no emotion. "Did you come to kill me? Or would you like me to heal something?"

Though Mulder tried to hide his feelings, a look of deep pain filled his eyes. "If you believed I still wanted to kill you, you wouldn't have sent your lackeys away. As for if I want you to heal something…is there anything you can do about my conscience?"

Scully finally smiled, though it was small and somber and brief. "I'm afraid you'll have to live with that. But you're right that I don't think you're going to try to kill me. I know you better than that." She turned away from him and stared at the cracked, peeling wall. She could no longer hide her emotions and didn't want Mulder to see them. "I'm here because I didn't think anyone would find me. And I want to do some good while I still can."

" 'While you still can'? What does that mean?"

"I'm dying, Mulder."

He flinched. "That…You can't be! Of what?"

"Of you, ultimately," she said sourly.

"Can't you heal yourself with the Isis Equation?"

She turned slightly, so that he could see her profile. "That's what's killing me. Everyone who reads it is altered differently. Some people die the first time they use it. That's one reason Erynis never read it herself. The human body isn't meant to harness that kind of energy."

"Stop using it." He didn't know what he hoped to accomplish by suggesting the obvious, he just couldn't comprehend the thought of her dying again.

"It's too late. I've memorized it. It's part of me now."

"Where did you even get it? I thought the only copy was destroyed."

"Erynis had another copy. She lied to us, hoping that she could convince everyone the Equation is gone."

That made sense to Mulder. Erynis was the mysterious former Soviet spy who had given Scully the Isis Equation to rescue Mulder from a secret government base in central Utah. She hadn't been able to bring herself to destroy the Equation. It had always seemed strange to Mulder that she would let someone else do it for her.

"There has to be something you can do," Mulder said pleadingly.

Scully scoffed. "To what end? What's my life worth? My sister's dead, my father's dead, and thanks to you I can't see my mother or my brothers again."

Mulder moved to her. The look of pain had spread to contort his face. He reached his hand out to touch her, but changed his mind and drew it away. "What about our search for the truth? Are you just going to let the Conspiracy win?"

Her lips cracked into a smile. "That has already been decided. The Conspiracy is doomed. Nothing I do will affect its fate anymore."

"Why?" Mulder asked. "What's going to happen?"

"I don't trust you nearly enough to reveal that," she replied.

He walked around her until they were facing again. "Then can you tell me something else? How did you recover your memories of the time when we thought you were dead?"

She avoided his eyes. "I got a phone call. The message said, 'It's time to return the favor.' That was the memory trigger they programmed into my mind when they sent me back."

"The BOC?"

Scully looked up at him, confirming his suspicion with a nod.

"Why did they want you to steal the alien fetus?"

"That really would be telling."

Her cell phone rang. She answered it quickly. "Vitayu." She listened for a moment. "Kudy?" A minute later, she muttered, "Spasybi," and pushed the end button. She turned to Mulder with a look on her face he hadn't seen for a long time. It might have been worry. "This is really lousy timing."

"What?"

Scully was moving toward a file cabinet in the corner of the room. "We have to get out of here. They've found me."

"Who? The Conspiracy?"

She opened the file cabinet, which was filled with assorted guns. "No, Serenix. They created the Isis Equation, and they'll do anything to get it back." She pulled out a derringer, which she tucked in a pocket, then picked out a nine-millimeter, which she handed to Mulder.

"I'm glad you still trust me with a gun," he said.

She gave him her "don't push it" look, and for a moment she was his Scully again. He smiled at her, and she slowly smiled back.

"Just like the old days," she said fondly.

"Why do you even have so many guns?" Mulder asked.

"Communists. They're everywhere." She started walking toward the door. "As you might imagine, they don't like that I give credit for my miracles to God."

"Why do you? It isn't true."

"That depends on the way you look at it. Some people give God the credit for everything."

"But I don't remember you ever being that extreme."

"God works in mysterious ways, Mulder." She opened the driver's-side door of a small beige car so old and dilapidated that any trace of a brand name had long since eroded away.

"And so do you. Do you really expect me to be seen in this thing?"

"Not if we can help it," she replied. "It runs; that's all that matters. Unless you want Serenix to find you and interrogate you for my whereabouts. And these scientists know methods of torture that you can't even imagine."

"Fine, I'm coming." He climbed into the other side. As soon as he pulled the creaking door closed, the car lurched into motion, then accelerated to unsafe speeds on the narrow road. In the rearview mirror, Mulder watched a contingent of black cars park in front of the abandoned building.

"What will your followers do?"

Scully glanced at the rearview mirror, then returned her eyes to the road. "They knew something like this would happen eventually. There's a network set up to warn them not to go back."

A few minutes later, when they were well out of sight of the Serenix agents, Mulder asked, "Where are we going?"

"To Yalta, where you're going to take the next train to Kiev. From there, you'll take the next available plane back to America."

"And what will you do?"

"Let me worry about that," she said.

"Do you have the Equation with you?" he asked.

She answered reluctantly, but Mulder had no doubt she answered honestly, especially since it was the response he expected. "No."

"Do you know what Serenix is going to do to you?" he nearly shouted with anger and fear.

"What do you care?" she snapped bitterly. "In case it's slipped your mind, you tried to kill me."

Mulder looked away as though he'd been slapped. He didn't know whether to be angry at her, angry at himself, or just saddened by that painful truth. "I suppose a simple 'I'm sorry' isn't going to make _that_ go away?" His almost-question contained a trace of resignation.

Scully stared straight ahead. "It's a start," she replied grudgingly.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ was created by and belongs to Chris Carter, not me.

Chapter 4

The road stretched in front of Mulder's impassive gaze, dully illuminated by car headlights and inconstant moonlight. How strange, Mulder thought, that he had played out in his mind entire conversations he would have with Scully if he found her alive again, but now that they were really together, they had gone nearly an hour in complete silence.

"How is Agent Hallad doing?" Scully asked suddenly, as though she'd been reading his mind.

"He's fine. He's back on the x-files, but Skinner hasn't assigned him a new partner yet."

"He's back in the Bureau?" Scully said in surprise. "I thought he was still in the mental institution."

Mulder flashed his sly smile. "I arranged a little transfer," he said enigmatically.

"Good for you," Scully said with a soft smile of her own.

"I've also been covertly helping him along with some of his cases."

"So you've become his Deep Throat and Mr. X."

"Except he knows my real name," Mulder added. "You never met him outside of the hospital, did you?"

"Yes."

A moment later, Mulder turned toward her with a perplexed expression. "When?"

"While he was your partner on the x-files."

"When we thought you were dead," Mulder said slowly. "You were the one who arranged for him to break the conspiracy theorist out of prison, weren't you? His description of his informant reminded me of you."

"I'm surprised he didn't recognize me when we paid him a visit in the hospital. Not that it would have mattered if he had."

"What about that case in Opelika, Alabama? The one when people were being possessed by water demons. I passed out underwater, but Hallad found me alive. I thought I vaguely remembered someone giving me mouth-to-mouth. And someone had shot the person trying to kill me. Was that you?"

"Yes," Scully confirmed.

"You saved my life. Did you follow me around on all my cases?"

"Of course not, though the BOC has always watched your work very closely. I was there because your contact was an old friend of one of my colleagues, Jemuel Hong. You met him when you were investigating UFO sightings in Vermont."

Mulder nodded. "It was only later that I realized he was the army officer reported missing in the blast that we thought killed you." He frowned deeply. "It _did_ kill you. I saw your body, Scully. That moment is burned into my memory. How did you…how is it possible that you're even here?"

Scully maintained stony silence.

"Okay, what about that Christmas I spent in the cathedral in Maryland? Were you really there, or did I dream that?"

"That was really me," she replied.

"And that dream I had that you came to my apartment?" The memory of it almost paralyzed him. "Was that really a dream?"

Scully swallowed, looking uncomfortable. "No," she said softly. Then she continued, as if she felt a need to explain herself. "I missed you, Mulder. I could hardly stand being so close to you, but not even being able to tell you I was alive."

Flashback

She looked at herself in the mirror of the motel room where she was staying while in D.C. Her hair was still shorter than she liked it, falling to just below her ear, but it did certainly make donning the wigs she frequently had to wear much easier. Her eyes looked sad. All she could think about was Mulder. It had been so long since she'd gazed into his eyes, felt the warmth of his touch and the comfort of his embrace.

She picked up her Bible, which was lying on top of the dresser, and opened it to the back cover, where she'd hidden a photograph. She began to weep. Why did she miss him so much tonight? She lifted the photo to her lips and tenderly kissed the image of Mulder.

Jemuel was in the next room. What if he came over to talk to her and found her missing? Then she'd make up an excuse later. For now, she didn't care that she was risking exposure; she had to see Mulder.

Grabbing her purse and slipping on her shoes, Scully walked out into the evening fog.

Present

"That night, I couldn't stand it anymore. I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Mulder assured her. "The hope that you were still alive, as small as it was, kept me going. I couldn't give up, because I knew how ashamed of me you would be if I did."

"And yet…"

Mulder pounded the dashboard in frustration. Those two words had broken a moment between them that felt just like their old chemistry. "You still blame me for joining my sister? You know why I had to do it."

"No," she said, trying to keep her anger in check, "I knew you would do it, but you didn't _have_ to do it. You didn't have to betray me and the x-files just because your search for your sister ended in the middle of the Conspiracy."

"What about the way that you _used_ me, even after you recovered your memories and learned the truth about my sister, to help you steal the alien fetus? And then you threatened to kill me!"

"But I _didn't_ kill you, Mulder. Maybe I volunteered to eliminate you because I knew I couldn't do it; there were others in the BOC who would have. Some of them thought I shouldn't have been given that responsibility because they didn't think I would be able to pull the trigger."

Mulder sighed. He was running out of rationalizations. "Where does that leave us?"

Scully blinked quickly, repressing the tears that had been threatening ever since Mulder walked into her office. "Someone can't rip your heart to shreds unless you give it to them in the first place," she mumbled, barely audibly.

"What was that?" Mulder asked, but then he figured out what she said, and what it meant, and it tore into him like broken glass.

"I said we can't be betrayed except by those we already trust," she said more loudly, and less emotionally.

It took Mulder several moments to recover enough to respond. "So after all these years, after all we've been through together, now we're enemies?"

"That was your choice to make, Mulder."

"You used me and abandoned me! You could have told me the truth; things might have worked out differently."

"You wouldn't have believed me," Scully said derisively.

"Maybe," he agreed, "but you should have given me the chance. You should have trusted me at least that much."

"Fine!" she exclaimed. "So I made a mistake by not betraying the BOC--any more than I already had by letting you go alive--to tell you everything I'd learned. But would it really have made any difference if you learned it from me instead of Samantha?"

"Yes!" He wasn't sure if that was an honest answer, but he wasn't going to give another. "You're my partner! Did you think you meant so little to me that I…"

"I knew exactly how much I meant to you!" Scully interrupted. "Do you know how much you meant to me? My partner, my closest friend…Do you know how much I admired you? How much I respected your dedication? But I knew that in the end we would both put what we perceived to be our obligations ahead of our loyalty to each other." She added in a near-whisper, "Or so I thought."

Mulder stared at her. His mouth hung slightly open as he tried to think of something more to say, but nothing came to mind.

The car slowed to a stop in front of the Yalta train station. Scully turned toward him, but she didn't look him in the eye. Her face revealed that she was grief-stricken and struggling to hide it. "Go," she recommended.

Mulder didn't move. "I'm not going to abandon you, Scully. I want to help you."

She produced her gun so quickly he was convinced she'd been planning for that reaction. "Get out of the car, and go." A tear dripped down her cheek. She didn't seem to notice.

"So we're going to part like this? Will I ever even see you again?" Mulder asked.

"Stranger things have happened, but most of them end up in the x-files."

Mulder couldn't speak. He opened the door and climbed out of the car.

"Wait, Mulder," Scully said, almost panicking.

He bent down and looked in at her expectantly.

She looked him directly in the eyes, looking into him, rather than at him. Her lips shook slightly as she spoke. "I wish things…could be different."

"So do I," Mulder agreed. He returned her penetrating gaze.

Scully leaned across the passenger seat and grabbed the door handle, but before she could pull it closed, Mulder covered her hand with his in the first physical contact they'd shared since they stole the alien fetus for the BOC. Scully looked up questioningly into Mulder's deep, intense, pleading eyes. She turned her hand outward, and their fingers gently nestled into each other's palms.

"Forty-seven days," Scully whispered. Then she pulled the car door closed and drove away as Mulder gazed after her.

Forty-seven. The number of days until the annual meeting of the Conspiracy with the aliens.


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Once again, _The X-Files_ and the characters thereof are the property of Ten-Thirteen Productions. Please don't sue.

Chapter 5

A steaming cup of black coffee sat on Fox Mulder's desk next to his computer keyboard. A space had been cleared of the pens, papers, and various other office detritus that literally carpeted the desk to accommodate the cup.

Samantha, observing through the window on Mulder's office door, shook her head in amusement. He never could keep his room clean, either. She watched her bleary-eyed brother sip from the cup as he read whatever was on his computer screen. Ever since his return from Eastern Europe, where the "promising" lead he had on Gibson Praise's whereabouts had dead-ended, Mr. Mulder had been practically obsessed with his work, and a little distressed, though he didn't show it. Once again, Samantha wished her telepathic powers worked as well on humans as they did on the Grays. She envied Gibson Praise, though that wasn't why he needed to die. His existence was a threat to her, not only because he could expose their work, but also because her enemies within the Conspiracy could use him against her, if they got their hands on him first. Fox was the only one she trusted with the search for him, and it kept him too busy to dwell on Scully.

Samantha considered opening the door to say hi, but she decided against it. She had too much to do; the meeting with the Grays was only four days away.

* * *

Fox Mulder had been palpably nervous for the past two days. He told Samantha that it was just because he would be meeting the aliens—_really _meeting them—for the first, and she had accepted that explanation. But the truth was something else entirely. 

The BOC were planning something; that was the only explanation he could come up with for Scully's cryptic words (words of warning?). He hadn't told Samantha about it, because that would have revealed that he'd been in contact with Scully.

And now the day had arrived.

The meeting would occur in ten hours, at 9 p.m., at a small airport in the mountains of West Virginia. Mulder wouldn't go until later, so he had most of the day to worry about it.

The BOC were tricky. He first heard about them from Cancer Man, who claimed they were responsible for the bomb that took Scully away from him. He didn't believe it at first, but after learning what the Lone Gunmen knew about the BOC—which, according to them, stood for Bureau of Civilization—he found it more plausible. They were radically anti-government computer hackers, saboteurs, obstructionists, and conspiracy theorists, with occasional forays into bombings and assassinations. They weren't limited to America, and they seemed to hate all forms of government equally. But Mulder had learned there was a lot more to them than that, as he and Agent Hallad probed into some of their more inexplicable activities. They clearly knew a great deal about the alien conspiracy, for one thing. And they seemed to have unlimited access to not only classified information, but also cutting-edge technology. He'd met some of their operatives—including Emiline Bach, a man called Chax, and Hannanna Rinwell, the daughter of the conspiracy theorist Agent Hallad broke out of prison. They all seemed like decent people.

But if they did something drastic to the Conspiracy, who would be left to save the world? Mulder couldn't quite bring himself to believe that the BOC was capable of doing anything about the plans for Colonization. That's why he was worried sick.

He suddenly stopped in the middle of the park path. What a revelation, that the reason he was worried literally to the point of being physically ill was over the fate of the world in general, and had nothing to do with the fact that he could die that night, or that--if nothing bad happened in the meantime--he would come face to face with the enigmatic threat that had haunted him and been hunted by him for the past decade, that evil force that was the greatest danger to human existence ever, that devil with which they had made a deal.

No wonder Scully was ashamed of him. He could only imagine what his father would think.

Mulder continued on his walk, suddenly deciding he needed a drink.

* * *

A few hours later, he climbed into his car. He sat for several minutes listening to music on the radio. 

Hallad once told him that you know you're in love when every song reminds you of someone. Of course, the only person he ever fell in love with was a married woman who died at the hands of his partner after killing her husband for selling out their daughter to a Serenix cloning experiment, but that didn't make his opinion any less valid.

Every song reminded Mulder of Scully.

Hector had also said that if the dead don't matter, neither do the living, since life is just a temporary condition anyway. Mulder had taken that wisdom to heart to help him cope with Scully's death. Her _apparent _death.

Finally, he shifted the car into drive. He fully intended to be a little late, but he didn't want to push it. Samantha said the Grays had a thing for punctuality.

He drove through the city, thinking of Scully, thinking of Samantha, wondering why life had to be so cruel and if he really though he was doing the right thing when he went to work for Samantha or if he just chose his sister over his partner, if right and wrong had even really figured into the choice.

A couple of hours later, as he was driving his car up a winding mountain road, a truck suddenly pulled out in front of him. He slammed on the brakes, but he didn't have enough time. The last thing he remembered was the crunch as the car slammed into the larger vehicle's side.


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: For the last time, I don't own ANYTHING!

Chapter 6

Mulder remembered that night often: a half-finished letter to himself sitting on his desk, and a sense of oppressive loneliness as he gazed out at the rain and the deep blue dusk and thought about ending it all. Just giving up, right there. But of course he wouldn't, not when he was about to be given the x-files. He knew that they officially assigned him to his pet project so they would have more control over him, be able to keep better track of him. They'd made no secret that the fresh, idealistic partner they were assigning him—a trained scientist—was there to report on him to their superiors and to keep him in line. He already didn't like her. Hopefully, he could shake her off, get her to request reassignment.

He sensed a warm hand on his cheek, a tingling sensation, as he briefly flirted with awareness of his surroundings, but then the darkness of unconsciousness claimed him again.

"Part of me doesn't believe she's really gone," Mulder told Skinner as the two men sat on a park bench after the explosion…after Mulder had seen them wheel out the body, badly burned, but recognizable.

"Part of you never will."

A warm, damp cloth dabbed his face. Something soft pressed against his forehead.

"I knew how you felt about each other," Skinner told him later as he stood in the A.D.'s office. "I should have reassigned you, but I didn't. Not just because you worked so well together, but because I knew you needed her. I even spread around the rumors that the two of you didn't get along personally, things like over-exaggerating your disputes and disagreements, so people wouldn't suspect how close you really were."

A warm blanket was tucked around him, but his eyes hurt too much for him to open them to see who was there.

The case of the sea snakes, of the herpetologist Lyn Casdorli, and the horrifying extent of Serenix's genetic experiments, had been both the case that introduced Scully to the then-institutionalized Agent Hector Hallad, and the first time since her reappearance at the hospital in Saskatchewan that Mulder had feared for her life. He held Scully, looked down at her writhing in pain as a will other than her own tried to force her to kill a Serenix scientist. He'd begged it to let her go, to take him instead. Then, when it did leave her, Mulder tried to shoot it, but it was too fast. When it was gone, he'd held Scully, who was still tormented by the lingering effects of having a genetically-engineered serpent inside her mind, linked to her telepathically through an injection of toxin into her brain stem. Later, in the car, she'd coughed into a napkin, then looked at him and speculated that someone was protecting the snake. She'd shown him the napkin, which was flecked with blood. Unfortunately, Dr. Casdorli was never seen again.

Mulder felt cool water trickle into his mouth. He swallowed it gratefully, then slipped back into his troubled quasi-sleep.

Skinner called him, and told him he couldn't get in touch with Scully. Mulder searched, he followed every lead he could think of, unable to even fathom the thought of losing her yet again. Then, a couple of nights later, there was a knock on the door. It was Scully, wearing a hooded jacket, and completely soaked. Her words were a desperate, almost frightened, plea. "I need your help." She knew where the government was keeping an alien fetus, and she could get in to steal it. With that evidence, they could expose the conspiracy. He only needed to serve as the getaway car. The timing had to be very exact, which hadn't made sense until Mulder later learned that Jemuel Hong, who had reappeared just as mysteriously as Scully, after a similar interval of time, had been working at that base, and had vanished the day of the theft. Once she had the fetus, she left. The next time he saw her, she was pointing a gun at him.

He heard the pounding of rain. His eye cracked open. All he saw was a dark room, the gray-blue light from the windows only serving to blind him to whatever or whoever might have been in there with him. Then he closed his eye again.

Everyone thought it was him. They thought he was the one infected with that worm. Being trapped in an enclosed space during a blizzard in Alaska did tend to bring out the paranoia in people. "I don't trust them," he said to Scully. Then he looked at her in a way he never had before. "But I want to trust you." Trust. Trust wasn't the foundation of every relationship, but it had been the heart and blood of theirs. He trusted her more deeply than he would ever trust another human being. Somewhere along the line, that trust had grown into something more. Their relationship had been to trust what love was to friendship.

Mulder heard voices. He opened his eyes, and saw that a television was on, showing the news.

"_Preliminary reports indicate there could be as many as twenty bodies, though they're so badly burned, even determining the exact number is problematic. Authorities are speculating this could be some kind of suicide cult. From West Virginia, I'm Alec Dorishima reporting."_

Another newscaster came on. _"We'll certainly keep you updated on the tragedy in West Virginia_..."

The TV turned off, and for the first time Mulder saw that there was someone else in the room. She walked over to the bed, and peered down at him, trying to decide if he was here to stay this time. Mulder couldn't bring herself to say her name…

The funeral...Everyone was weeping. Scully's mother said something poignant. Three or four different people were scattered at the edges of the cemetery, watching the proceedings through binoculars. Mulder's face was developing a Bill's-fist-shaped bruise. He lingered in the cemetery after everyone else left, then dropped the letter he'd written to Scully next to her gravestone. He didn't even remember what he'd written. It hadn't seemed to matter, at the time.

Mulder forced his eyes open again, and looked up at Scully, who was now sitting on the edge of his bed. He decided he was in a beach house. The only light was coming in through the windows, pale yellow morning sun. Scully obviously wasn't well. Her eyes seemed sunken, and her hands shook noticeably.

"Samantha's dead, isn't she?"

"They're all dead, Mulder," Scully said gently. "I'm sorry. It was necessary."

"There was a time when you thought murder was never necessary." Mulder's voice was wispy, and weakened to a whisper near the end of his sentence.

"It's not called murder when it's necessary." She looked so tired.

"How did I get here?" Mulder asked, starting at the least complicated of his thousand questions.

"I brought you. After you hit into my truck."

He shook his head, which didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. "You planned that?"

She nodded. "And it wasn't easy. I had to set up a hidden camera to make sure it was you coming."

Mulder thought of the burned remains and ashes he'd seen on the news. If not for that car accident, he would have been with them. Which, at the moment, didn't seem like it would have been so bad. "The Grays…the aliens. Without my sister, they'll speed up the timeline for colonization."

Scully laughed weakly. "I don't think we need to worry about that."

"Are you going to tell me the whole truth now, since there's no one I can rat you out to anymore?"

"Today," Scully said. "But right now you need your rest."

Mulder pushed himself into a sitting position. "Not as much as you do. Did you heal me?"

"Yes," Scully admitted.

A ball of sadness wedged itself in Mulder's throat. "How long do you have?" He asked in a voice full of tears.

Scully put her fingers on her forehead. "I'll last the day," she assured him.

"The day?" His vision blurred. "A day." He couldn't believe Scully would do that to him, would save his life only to abandon him now. "You should have let me die," he managed before the tears came.

"It could be longer," Scully said in a pathetic attempt to comfort him.

"You selfish…" Whatever he was going to call her was precluded by a sob.

Scully reached for him, and pulled his head to her shoulder. His arms wrapped around her as a series of choking sobs wracked his body.

She felt sorry for him, but not for herself. She was resigned to her fate.

"You saved my life, just so you could go first." He was barely coherent. "You're all I have left. There is no one else in my life. And you're going to die. You still have family and friends, and I have no one."

"I was going to die whether I saved you or not. But I couldn't let you die, Mulder. I could save you, so I did." She held him until he stopped crying, then she said, "Come on, we can talk over breakfast."

She put her arm around Mulder's shoulder and led him out onto the patio. He sat at the small, glass-topped table as Scully went back in the house to make breakfast.

The beach house was located on what would be a small peninsula at high tide, and a hill on the beach with mud flats and tidal pools to the west at low tide. Mulder stared out across it, not really seeing it. He was numb, his mind a haze of misery.

Scully returned carrying plates of toast and fried eggs, and then fetched two cups of orange juice.

"Where are we?" Mulder asked.

"North Carolina. This house belongs to a family friend." In the morning light, she didn't look quite as frail, but she still moved with a deep weariness, and the shaking in her hands had worsened.

Mulder looked at his food with absolutely no appetite, but Scully ate hers hungrily.

"Why aren't you in a hospital?" Mulder suddenly demanded.

She finished her last bite of egg before looking up at him and answering calmly. "They couldn't do anything for me, and I'd rather spend my last day in a place like this than staring at a hospital room ceiling. Wouldn't you?"

"How do you know they couldn't do anything for you? Maybe there's some treatment, some…" He stopped and stared, his eyes pleading desperately for _any_ sign of hope.

Scully sighed. "Mulder, the Dana Scully you knew died in that explosion."

Mulder flinched slightly. "You're speaking metaphorically, right?"

She shook her head.

"What are you talking about?"

She sighed again. "I guess the first thing you need to know is that the BOC…some of them are human, but the higher-ups are extraterrestrials. You've met some of them. They're called the Bade, or at least that's as close as I can pronounce it, and their medical technology is vastly superior to ours. They made a…not a clone, a full-grown copy…of me. I remembered losing consciousness in the warehouse, and then I woke up on a spaceship, bald and without a bellybutton." She smiled at the memory, as though there were anything funny about it.

Mulder had a sickened expression on his face.

Scully noted his reaction, but didn't take offense. "I have all of Dana Scully's memories…they transferred her brain patterns when they created me. I think of myself as Dana Scully, but I'm not technically the same person. You must have considered that possibility when you found me."

"I did at first," Mulder said, "but the way you acted, your mannerisms…I was sure you were my Scully."

"I am."

Mulder leaned on the table and ran his hands over his eyes and through his hair. He took a deep breath. "So why did they do it?" He asked. "Why did they kill you?"

"They saved me. My cancer had returned. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was going to, but I knew what it would do to you."

"They took you away from me!" He suddenly realized how selfish that was, and felt ashamed that he'd even thought it. "I'm sorry. It's just…I don't know what I'm going to do. I lost you when you were abducted, I lost you in that explosion, I lost you when I shot you, and now I'm losing you again. It doesn't get easier."

Scully reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. "But you'll survive, Mulder. You're strong enough. I know you are."

He looked up at her, tears threatening again. "You are my strength, Scully." He straitened up and looked away. "Why did they save you, if that's what you want to call it?"

"They needed my help. They needed me and Jemuel to help them get the alien fetus."

"Why did they need the alien fetus?"

She smiled at him. "You haven't figured that out yet, Mulder? They created a vaccine."

"Against the Grays?" he asked in deep confusion.

"When the Bade first found Earth, about a hundred years ago, they learned about the plans for colonization, and they decided to stop it. The Grays still don't know about their existence."

"So now that they have a vaccine, what are they going to do with it?"

"They've already released it into the atmosphere, through a genetically engineered bacterium. By now, everyone on Earth is immune. Any Gray that breathes our air will die."

Mulder massaged his forehead. "So now what are they going to do, the Bade…"

"Leave. They're going to leave as soon as they're absolutely sure the plan worked."

"And you trust them."

Scully almost laughed. "That question coming from you. Yes, I trust them. I know them, Mulder. They're not interested in colonization, or anything else."

"So they're completely altruistic?" he asked sarcastically.

Scully carefully considered how to phrase her answer. "They consider the Grays a threat to their security, and wanted to stop them before they could spread. Trust me on this one." She picked up her dishes and walked into the house. Mulder drained his orange juice like a shot of whiskey, then followed her.

"Why did they kidnap Gibson Praise?" he asked.

"They did not 'kidnap' Gibson Praise; they _rescued_ Gibson Praise from your sister. And now that the Conspiracy has been neutralized, he'll be returned to his family."

Mulder collapsed into a sofa. "I guess I owe you an apology; I thought the Conspiracy's plan was the world's only hope. I should have trusted you."

Scully knew he didn't really mean that, even if he did believe it at the moment, but it didn't matter anymore. She saw in him now not the man who had pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger, but the man who had on so many occasions risked his life to save hers, who had put his life in her hands more than once, who wept over her in the hospital. He was her partner, her friend, her ally. At one time, they stood side by side against the entire world. Then they failed each other, and that hurt so much because they had so far to fall. And now she had mere hours to make things right with him again.

"It was so hard for me to trust you, at first," he said suddenly. "That day you walked into my office…I knew you were sent to spy on me. I thought how it was perfectly natural that they would send a beautiful woman to gain my trust, worm her way into my confidence. I wasn't going to let them succeed. But you didn't let me. You were always there for me, speaking your mind, standing up for me, proving me wrong about you again and again. You never gave up on me. Every time I tried to pull away, you were there to pull me back. You believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. I can never thank you enough for that."

"I know," she said simply.

He looked up at her. She was leaning against the glass sliding door, looking out over the beach.

"I don't understand why you wouldn't just let me die."

"Yes you do." She looked away from the window, but continued leaning against it. "Everything we've been through together...All these years. It means a lot. And I didn't want the last thing I ever do to be letting you die. I wanted you with me. It's appropriate, Mulder. I wouldn't have joined the F.B.I. if I wanted a normal, happy, long life. Maybe I still could have had that, if I hadn't been assigned to you, but I joined the F.B.I. because I wanted to help people and make a difference, and now I have. I helped save the world, but I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for you, for the things I learned from you. So I couldn't leave you to die, no matter how much I…no matter how much I hurt because of you." She realized she wasn't making herself clear, and took a moment to think of another way to say what she was trying to communicate. "There are things you've done for me that I can never thank you enough for, too."

She suddenly lost her balance and tried to clutch at the wall to keep herself upright. In an instant, Mulder was behind her. He caught her before she could fall, and half-carried her to the sofa. Her head rested against his shoulder. He could feel her hand vibrate against his chest. He held that hand firmly in his, willing the shaking to stop. It didn't belong to her. Those doctor hands that had healed and comforted him so many times shouldn't shake.

"Scully?" he whispered fearfully.

Her eyes fluttered open. She forced a small smile. "I guess now is the time to tell you…I love you."

"If I had warned Samantha about what you said to me, the BOC might have failed. You risked the end of the world to save my life. That's not something you have to _tell _me."

Scully nodded. "As I said, I wish things could have been different…"

"So do I."

"But we never could have had a normal life together. I accepted that a long time ago, even before I wanted it."

"You're saying this is the best outcome we could have hoped for?" Mulder asked incredulously.

"I'm saying it's not that bad." She closed her eyes and settled in closer to Mulder. "And it's all we have."

He cradled her in his arms, enjoyed the sensation of her breath against his skin. "Before I met you," he whispered into her hair, "I thought I was soulless. I looked inside myself, and there was nothing in me but dark and empty and cold. But then you came…you showed me that I was never empty, just dark. You were my sunrise."

A single tear wet his shoulder.

For hours, Mulder held her in silence, remembering the moments of happiness she'd provided him, the flashes of light against the backdrop of his otherwise miserable life. Near sunset, her heartbeat slowed, her breath stopped, and she was gone.

"I love you." Mulder began to weep. "I love you so much, Scully. Oh, God, please don't leave me."

The golds, pinks, oranges, and blues of the sunset gleamed off the tide pools through the window, casting their mingled glow over the room and its occupant. She watched him cling to the empty body, a mixture of tenderness and pity on her face. Then she turned away. Her bare feet lightly graced the ground as she walked out, not bothering with the door. Her white dress flickered noiselessly behind her. There, in the sunset's light, was her father, and her sister, and her daughter, her grandparents, and friends she thought lost. They reached for her, greeted her with smiles as bright as the sun, and embraced her when she reached them. She spared one last glance behind her, sending a smile full of love and sorrow to the one she left behind. Then she and those who came to greet her faded into the golden light.


	8. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Epilogue

Assistant Director Walter Skinner looked up when he heard his office door open unexpectedly, and promptly dropped his pen in shock.

"I thought you were dead! I saw on the news…"

Mulder shook his head. He looked worn out and forlorn, more so than Skinner had ever seen him. "I wasn't there." Then he said something that explained his appearance. "Scully's dead."

"Was she there?" Skinner asked, confused. "In West Virginia?"

"No. She died from…old injuries. You know what happened in West Virginia?"

"I have a good guess. The conspirators are dead. Someone got to them."

"Something like that," Mulder confirmed.

Skinner examined his former underling. Scully's death had damaged him, had broken something inside him. "Are you going to tell her mother?"

"No. I can't go through that again. Besides…I feel responsible. I can't face her."

"I see," Skinner said. "I'll tell her."

"Thank you, sir."

"If you don't mind my asking, what are you going to do now?"

Mulder shook his head. There would have been tears, but there didn't seem to be enough of him left to cry. "I have no idea."

"You could come back to the F.B.I.," Skinner suggested. "I haven't assigned Hallad a partner yet."

Mulder considered it for a moment. "I couldn't do that. The X-Files…The Bureau, it's too close to _her_."

"I understand." Skinner didn't want to think about what else Mulder might do, as that could make him later feel responsible for not stopping it. "Then I guess this is goodbye."

"I want you to know, sir, that it's been an honor to serve under you. I didn't always know whose side you were on, but I respected you, and I'm glad you were my superior; I don't think there's another assistant director in the whole F.B.I. who would have put up with me. Scully respected you, too."

"Thank you, Agent Mulder. It's been an honor knowing you."

"Tell Hector goodbye for me. And tell Scully's mother…that she died a hero."

"I will."

With a final nod, Mulder left the office.

He walked down the street, away from the building he knew so well, where he'd met Scully and worked beside her for so many years. He didn't know where he was going, just that he didn't want to be found.

"Agent Mulder."

He turned to see Emiline Bach. "What do you want?"

"You weren't at the party," the tall, exotic-looking brunette said. "I guessed it had something to do with Dana. I knew she wouldn't give up on you as long as she lived. Will you deliver a message to her?"

"I can't," Mulder said, fighting away his grief. "She's dead."

Emiline looked shocked. And saddened. "How? What happened?"

It occurred to Mulder that Scully might not have wanted the BOC to know about the Equation. "A degenerative nerve disorder," he said briefly.

Emiline's eyes dropped. "She chose to die," she said quietly. "We could have saved her."

"You're one of them, aren't you?" Mulder asked. "You're a Bade."

Emiline looked up sharply. "She told you about us?"

"Right before she died."

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said. "It's over. We're leaving now, and you'll never be able to prove we were ever here."

An idea came to Mulder, one so remote and unexpected that he barely dared hope. "Can you still save her? You brought her back to life once; can you do it again?"

Emiline shook her head. "No. That requires live tissue samples and active brainwaves. We can't do it if the patient's already dead."

Mulder visibly deflated.

"I know she meant a lot to you," Emiline said. "And you meant a lot to her. We were going to offer to take her with us, though I didn't expect her to accept. But if she's dead…I think she would like it if you came with us instead."

"Came with you where?"

"Away," she said.

Mulder looked around him, taking in the world that held nothing for him now. The world where Scully would never be again. Did he want to leave this place, still haunted by her memory? Or did he want to cling to everything ever touched by her, to be as close to her as possible, even though he could never see her again?

Then the answer came to him: Scully would always be as close as his own heart, but this was a world where his task was done. Going with Emiline wouldn't be escaping from his past, just moving on.

He nodded.


End file.
